(Whate’er the chance) which first arresting eye, warned soul
That, under wrong enough and ravage, lay the whole
O’ the loveliness it “loved” — I take the accepted phrase?
LI.
So I account for tastes: each chooses, none gainsays
The fancy of his fellow, a paradise for him,
A hell for all beside. You can but crown the brim
O’ the cup; if it be full, what matters less or more?
Let each, i’ the world, amend his love, as I, o’ the shore
My sketch, and the result as undisputed be!
Their handiwork to them, and my Elvire to me:
— Result more beautiful than beauty’s self, when lo,
What was my Rafael turns my Michelagnolo!
LII.
For, we two boast, beside our pearl, a diamond.
I’ the palace-gallery, the corridor beyond,
Upheaves itself a marble, a magnitude man-shaped
As snow might be. One hand, — the Master’s, — smoothed and scraped
That mass, he hammered on and hewed at, till he hurled
Life out of death, and left a challenge: for the world,
Death still, — since who shall dare, close to the image, say
If this be purposed Art, or mere mimetic play
Of Nature? — wont to deal with crag or cloud, as stuff
To fashion novel forms, like forms we know, enough
For recognition, but enough unlike the same,
To leave no hope ourselves may profit by her game;
Death therefore to the world. Step back a pace or two!
And then, who dares dispute the gradual birth its due
Of breathing life, or breathless immortality,
Where out she stands, and yet stops short, half bold, half shy,
Hesitates on the threshold of things, since partly blent
With stuff she needs must quit, her native element
I’ the mind o’ the Master, — what’s the creature, deardivine
Yet earthly-awful too, so manly-feminine,
Pretends this white advance? What startling brain-escape
Of Michelagnolo takes elemental shape?
I think he meant the daughter of the old man o’ the sea,
Emerging from her wave, goddess Eidotheé —
She who, in elvish sport, spite with benevolence
Mixed Mab wise up, must needs instruct the Hero whence
Salvation dawns o’er that mad misery of his isle.
Yes, she imparts to him, by what a pranksome wile
He may surprise her sire, asleep beneath a rock,
When he has told their tale, amid his web-foot flock
Of sea-beasts, “fine fat seals with bitter breath!” laughs she
At whom she likes to save, no less: Eidotheé,
Whom you shall never face evolved, in earth, in air,
In wave; but, manifest i’ the soul’s domain, why, there
She ravishingly moves to meet you, all through aid
O’ the soul! Bid shine what should, dismiss into the shade
What should not be, — and there triumphs the paramount
Emprise o’ the Master! But, attempt to make account
Of what the sense, without soul’s help, perceives? I bought
That work — (despite plain proof, whose hand it was had wrought
I’ the rough: I think we trace the tool of triple tooth,
Here, there and everywhere) — bought dearly that uncouth
Unwieldy bulk, for just ten dollars — ”Bulk, would fetch —
Converted into lime — some five pauls!” grinned a wretch,
Who, bound on business, paused to hear the bargaining,
And would have pitied me “but for the fun o’ the thing!”
LIII.
Shall such a wretch be — you? Must — while I show Elvire
Shaming all other forms, seen as I see her here
I’ the soul, — this other-you perversely look outside,
And ask me, “Where i’ the world is charm to be descried
I’ the tall thin personage, with paled eye, pensive face,
Any amount of love, and some remains of grace?”
See yourself in my soul!
LIV.
And what a world for each
Must somehow be i’ the soul, — accept that mode of speech, —
Whether an aura gird the soul, wherein it seems
To float and move, a belt of all the glints and gleams
It struck from out that world, its weaklier fellows found
So dead and cold; or whether these not so much surround,
As pass into the soul itself, add worth to worth,
As wine enriches blood, and straightway send it forth,
Conquering and to conquer, through all eternity,
That’s battle without end.
LV.
I search but cannot see
What purpose serves the soul that strives, or world it tries
Conclusions with, unless the fruit of victories
Stay, one and all, stored up and guaranteed its own
For ever, by some mode whereby shall be made known
The gain of every life. Death reads the title clear —
What each soul for itself conquered from out things here:
Since, in the seeing soul, all worth lies, I assert, —
And nought i’ the world, which, save for soul that sees, inert
Was, is, and would be ever, — stuff for transmuting, — null
And void until man’s breath evoke the beautiful —
But, touched aright, prompt yields each particle its tongue
Of elemental flame, — no matter whence flame sprung
From gums and spice, or else from straw and rottenness,
So long as soul has power to make them burn, express
What lights and warms henceforth, leaves only ash behind,
Howe’er the chance: if soul be privileged to find
Food so soon that, by first snatch of eye, suck of breath,
It can absorb pure life: or, rather, meeting death
I’ the shape of ugliness, by fortunate recoil
So put on its resource, it find therein a foil
For a new birth of life, the challenged soul’s response
To ugliness and death, — creation for the nonce.
LVI.
I gather heart through just such conquests of the soul,
Through evocation out of that which, on the whole,
Was rough, ungainly, partial accomplishment, at best,
And — what, at worst, save failure to spit at and detest? —
— Through transference of all, achieved in visible things,
To where, secured from wrong, rest soul’s imaginings —
Through ardour to bring help just where completion halts,
Do justice to the purpose, ignore the slips and faults —
And, last, through waging with deformity a fight
Which wrings thence, at the end, precise its opposite.
I praise the loyalty o’ the scholar, — stung by taunt
Of fools “Does this evince thy Master men so vaunt?
Did he then perpetrate the plain abortion here?”
Who cries “His work am I! full fraught by him, I clear
His fame from each result of accident and time,
Myself restore his work to its fresh morning-prime,
Not daring touch the mass of marble, fools deride,
But putting my idea in plaster by its side,
His, since mine; I, he made, vindicate who made me!”
LVII.
For, you must know, I too achieved Eidotheé,
In silence and by night — dared justify the lines
Plain to my soul, although, to sense, that triple-tine’s
Achievement halt half-way, break down, or leave a blank.
If s
he stood forth at last, the Master was to thank!
Yet may there not have smiled approval in his eyes —
That one at least was left who, born to recognize
Perfection in the piece imperfect, worked, that night,
In silence, such his faith, until the apposite
Design was out of him, truth palpable once more?
And then, — for at one blow, its fragments strewed the floor, —
Recalled the same to live within his soul as heretofore.
LVIII.
And, even as I hold and have Eidotheé,
I say, I cannot think that gain, — which would not be
Except a special soul had gained it, — that such gain
Can ever be estranged, do aught but appertain
Immortally, by right firm, indefeasible,
To who performed the feat, through God’s grace and man’s will!
Gain, never shared by those who practised with earth’s stuff,
And spoiled whate’er they touched, leaving its roughness rough,
Its blankness bare, and, when the ugliness opposed,
Either struck work or laughed “He doted or he dozed!”
LIX.
While, oh, how all the more will love become intense
Hereafter, when “to love” means yearning to dispense,
Each soul, its own amount of gain through its own mode
Of practising with life, upon some soul which owed
Its treasure, all diverse and yet in worth the same,
To new work and changed way! Things furnish you rose-flame,
Which burn up red, green, blue, nay, yellow more than needs,
For me, I nowise doubt; why doubt a time succeeds
When each one may impart, and each receive, both share
The chemic secret, learn, — where I lit force, why there
You drew forth lambent pity, — where I found only food
For self-indulgence, you still blew a spark at brood
I’ the greyest ember, stopped not till self-sacrifice imbued
Heaven’s face with flame? What joy, when each may supplement
The other, changing each as changed, till, wholly blent,
Our old things shall be new, and, what we both ignite,
Fuse, lose the varicolor in achromatic white!
Exemplifying law, apparent even now
In the eternal progress, — love’s law, which I avow
And thus would formulate: each soul lives, longs and works
For itself, by itself, — because a lodestar lurks,
An other than itself, — in whatsoe’er the niche
Of mistiest heaven it hide, whoe’er the Glumdalclich
May grasp the Gulliver: or it, or he, or she —
Theosutos e broteios eper kekramene, —
(For fun’s sake, where the phrase has fastened, leave it fixed!
So soft it says, — ”God, man, or both together mixed”!)
This, guessed at through the flesh, by parts which prove the whole,
This constitutes the soul discernible by soul
— Elvire, by me!
LX.
“And then” — (pray you, permit remain
This hand upon my arm! — your cheek dried, if you deign,
Choosing my shoulder) — ”then” — (Stand up for, boldly state
The objection in its length and breadth!) “you abdicate,
With boast yet on your lip, soul’s empire, and accept
The rule of sense; the Man, from monarch’s throne has stept —
Leapt, rather, at one bound, to base, and there lies, Brute.
You talk of soul, — how soul, in search of soul to suit,
Must needs review the sex, the army, rank and file
Of womankind, report no face nor form so vile
But that a certain worth, by certain signs, may thence
Evolve itself and stand confessed — to soul — by sense.
Sense? Oh, the loyal bee endeavours for the hive!
Disinterested hunts the flower-field through, alive
Not one mean moment, no, — suppose on flower he light, —
To his peculiar drop, petal-dew perquisite,
Matter-of-course snatched snack: unless he taste, how try?
This, light on tongue-tip laid, allows him pack his thigh,
Transport all he counts prize, provision for the comb,
Food for the future day, — a banquet, but at home!
Soul? Ere you reach Fifine’s, some flesh may be to pass!
That bombéd brow, that eye, a kindling chrysopras,
Beneath its stiff black lash, inquisitive how speeds
Each functionary limb, how play of foot succeeds,
And how you let escape or duly sympathize
With gastroknemian grace, — true, your soul tastes and tries,
And trifles time with these, but, fear not, will arrive
At essence in the core, bring honey home to hive,
Brain-stock and heart-stuff both — to strike objectors dumb —
Since only soul affords the soul fit pabulum!
Be frank for charity! Who is it you deceive —
Yourself or me or God, with all this make-believe?”
LXI.
And frank I will respond as you interrogate.
Ah, Music, wouldst thou help! Words struggle with the weight
So feebly of the False, thick element between
Our soul, the True, and Truth! which, but that intervene
False shows of things, were reached as easily by thought
Reducible to word, as now by yearnings wrought
Up with thy fine free force, oh Music, that canst thrid,
Electrically win a passage through the lid
Of earthly sepulchre, our words may push against,
Hardly transpierce as thou! Not dissipate, thou deign’st,
So much as tricksily elude what words attempt
To heave away, i’ the mass, and let the soul, exempt
From all that vapoury obstruction, view, instead
Of glimmer underneath, a glory overhead.
Not feebly, like our phrase, against the barrier go
In suspirative swell the authentic notes I know,
By help whereof, I would our souls were found without
The pale, above the dense and dim which breeds the doubt!
But Music, dumb for you, withdraws her help from me;
And, since to weary words recourse again must be,
At least permit they rest their burthen here and there,
Music-like: cover space! My answer, — need you care
If it exceed the bounds, reply to questioning
You never meant should plague? Once fairly on the wing,
Let me flap far and wide!
LXII.
For this is just the time,
The place, the mood in you and me, when all things chime.
Clash forth life’s common chord, whence, list how there ascend
Harmonics far and faint, till our perception end, —
Reverberated notes whence we construct the scale
Embracing what we know and feel and are! How fail
To find or, better, lose your question, in this quick
Reply which nature yields, ample and catholic?
For, arm in arm, we two have reached, nay, passed, you see,
The village-precinct; sun sets mild on Sainte Marie —
We only catch the spire, and yet I seem to know
What’s hid i’ the turn o’ the hill: how all the graves must glow
Soberly, as each warms its little iron cross,
Flourished about with gold, and graced (if private loss
Be fresh) with stiff rope-wreath of yellow crisp beadblooms
Which tempt down birds to pay their supper, mid the tombs,
With prattle good as song, amuse the dead awhile,
If couched they hear beneath the matt
ed camomile!
LXIII.
Bid them good-bye before last friend has sung and supped!
Because we pick our path and need our eyes, — abrupt
Descent enough, — but here’s the beach, and there’s the bay,
And, opposite, the streak of Île Noirmoutier.
Thither the waters tend; they freshen as they haste,
At feel o’ the night-wind, though, by cliff and cliff embraced,
This breadth of blue retains its self-possession still;
As you and I intend to do, who take our fill
Of sights and sounds — soft sound, the countless hum and skip
Of insects we disturb, and that good fellowship
Of rabbits our foot-fall sends huddling, each to hide
He best knows how and where; and what whirred past, wings wide?
That was an owl, their young may justlier apprehend!
Though you refuse to speak, your beating heart, my friend,
I feel against my arm, — though your bent head forbids
A look into your eyes, yet, on my cheek, their lids
That ope and shut, soft send a silken thrill the same.
Well, out of all and each these nothings, comes — what came
Often enough before, the something that would aim
Once more at the old mark: the impulse to at last
Succeed where hitherto was failure in the past,
And yet again essay the adventure. Clearlier sings
No bird to its couched corpse “Into the truth of things —
Out of their falseness rise, and reach thou, and remain!”
LXIV.
“That rise into the true out of the false — explain?”
May an example serve? In yonder bay I bathed,
This sunny morning: swam my best, then hung, half swathed
With chill, and half with warmth, i’ the channel’s midmost deep:
You know how one — not treads, but stands in water? Keep
Body and limbs below, hold head back, uplift chin,
And, for the rest, leave care! If brow, eyes, mouth, should win
Their freedom, — excellent! If they must brook the surge,
No matter though they sink, let but the nose emerge.
So, all of me in brine lay soaking: did I care
One jot? I kept alive by man’s due breath of air
I’ the nostrils, high and dry. At times, o’er these would run
The ripple, even wash the wavelet, — morning’s sun
Tempted advance, no doubt: and always flash of froth,
Fish-outbreak, bubbling by, would find me nothing loth
To rise and look around; then all was overswept
With dark and death at once. But trust the old adept!
Back went again the head, a merest motion made,
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 157